IX.
ON AN OGHAM INSCRIPTION RECENTLY DISCOVERED IN COUNTY WICKLOW.
By PROFESSOR E. A. S. MACALISTER, D.Litt., F.S.A.
Plate XXXII.
Read June 26. Published August 10, 1916.
The Ogham-inscribed monument which forms the subject of this paper was found under curious circumstances. I had occasion, two or three months ago, to purchase some lantern-slides of rude stone monuments from the stock of Mr. Thomas Mason, of Dame Street in this city; and among them was a slide of this stone, which Mr. Mason had photographed some twelve or fifteen years ago. I found the tips of the scores in examining the lantern-slide. The marks had been seen at the time by Mr. Mason, as he tells me, but he had not been able to make up his mind as to whether they were Ogham or not. The photograph had been taken from the side opposite to the Ogham, so that only the tips of the letters on the H-side were visible; but it seemed impossible to doubt that the monument was a genuine Ogham. I visited it on 17 April 1916, along with some friends, including the Rev. E. K. Hanna, who kindly placed his motor-car at our disposal, thereby solving the problem of reaching a most inaccessible monument with the minimum of difficulty. The site will be found on the six-inch map, Wicklow sheet 22, a little to the left of the middle of the sheet. The name of the townland is there spelt "Knickeen" — it should be Cnuicín — and the stone is marked "The Long Stone," in italics, not in the Gothic lettering in which antiquities are usually marked. The same is true of the other Ogham in the neighbourhood, that now in Mr. Goddard's garden at Donard.
The monument is a slab of granite, 7 feet 6 inches above ground. It is comparatively narrow below, but broadens out fan-wise to a width of 6 feet on the north and south faces. The thickness is 2 feet 2 inches. The stone has had pieces broken from it, seemingly in comparatively recent times, to judge from the appearance of the fractures; one block, which possibly once
